Posted on 05/02/2005 6:19:23 PM PDT by Destro
Analysis: Christian revival at Russian battlefield
By Martin Sieff
UPI Senior News Analyst
Published April 28, 2005
BELGOROD, Russia -- There is literally nothing to look at in the rich, black earth wheat fields of Belgorod province: Nothing to reveal from the gently undulating land that the greatest tank battle of all time was fought here. Yet the monuments to the 1943 Battle of Kursk contain many surprises and startling clues to the future destiny of Russia.
The land is strikingly reminiscent of the industrial Midwest. You could be in Wisconsin or Indiana, close to Milwaukee or Indianapolis. There is the same causal intermixing of industry and farmland. And like Wisconsin, the land is blessed by a plethora of small and charming lakes heralded by wisps of woodland. Take a closer look, however, and it is clear none of those trees is more than half a century old. Everything around here, whether they were the works of nature or man, was pulverized before that date.
For Belgorod was one of the two focal points of the Battle of Kursk, a battle of legendary import to military scholars. In 50 days of fighting, 300,000 Germans and 300,000 Soviet soldiers perished here, three times the battlefield dead and almost the entire total death toll of the U.S. Civil War. More Soviet soldiers fell here than the entire U.S. combat dead of World War II, and when it was all done, the fabled panzer tank armies of the Third Reich were shattered forever. The last offensive armored thrust that Adolf Hitler finally mounted at the Battle of the Bulge was a dying whisper by comparison.
At Kursk, the Nazis and the Soviets together deployed 70,000 tanks, self-propelled guns and mobile pieces of artillery. Thousands of aircraft clashed in the skies above the battle. The very earth seemed to heave and vomit in the red-gray upheaval, day after day, week after week.
For half a century, Kursk was glorified as another heroic triumph of the Soviet Union, but in the 13 years and more since the collapse of communism, the narrative has changed, the past has been transformed through the shifting perspective of the present. It is seen through another, far more unexpected glass. For the hundreds of thousands who died defending their Motherland in the wheat fields of west-central Russia are now revered also as Christian martyrs.
A magnificent new Orthodox Christian Cathedral, the Petropavlovsk, or St. Peter and St. Paul, with the familiar magnificent golden onion domes, now soars up above Prokhorovka field, the site of the last "death ride" battle charge of the German panzers against the smaller but more numerous Soviet tanks.
At the farthest point of German penetration, a new memorial stands -- not in the melodramatic over-the-top heroic grandeur of Soviet Socialist realism, nor in the angular, more restrained Le Corbusier straight lines and smooth curves so beloved of later Soviet architects, but something that could have been raised by the tsars. It is tall, elegant, filled in every detail with carvings commemorating the sacrifice sand heroism of what Russians still call "The Great Patriotic War." Many of them glorify The People in what is still a recognizable Soviet style. But atop one of the four sides of the pillar is another motif entirely: It is that of St. George.
For Prokhorovka Field and the sacrifice of the heroic scores of thousands who fell there has been reclaimed by the soul of a far older Russia. It is now routinely referred to as the third great battlefield of sacrifice of the Russian people. The first was Kuikovo Field where Dimitri Donskoi, Dimitri of the Don, greatest of all medieval Russian heroes, finally broke the Mongol-Tatar yoke of Khan Mamai after a century and a half of oppression in 1380. And the second was Borodino, where another 50,000 Russians fell fighting the previously invincible Grande Armee of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to a standstill in front of Moscow in 1812.
Yet the Battle of Kursk's transfiguration into a symbol of the great and ancient Russian past was prefigured even at the time. On the eve of the great battle that erupted on July 4, 1943, scores, perhaps hundreds, of Soviet soldiers reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary in the hot, dry, blind bright summer skies above the baking wheat fields.
It was an astonishing phenomenon to occur in what had been the most aggressively and ruthless atheistic regime in history. It was even more unusual because the virgin has never enjoyed the pre-eminence in Russian Orthodox Christianity that she has in the Western Catholic faith. The Orthodox Church has always focused on the grandeur of Kristos Pankrator -- Christ as Cosmic Emperor or Ruler.
Nor are the nationalistic and Christian religious traditions surrounded Kursk of purely historical or curiosity interest only. For Belgorod, the historic "White City" of southwestern Russia, is now undergoing a striking Orthodox Christian revival. New Orthodox churches are springing up all over the region and attendance is rapidly rising.
This, indeed, is true for Russia as a whole. Even during the later decades of the Soviet era, far more people, including many Communist Party officials and their families, quietly and devoutly attended services. Now, however, far more do it and do so openly, even young, smart, up-and-coming, yuppie-type Moscow professionals.
The city of Belgorod, capital of the Belgorod oblast or region, is booming in other ways too. It was hit long and hard during the years of chaos and deprivation that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the bungled crash privatization under President Boris Yeltsin. Now, better times have returned. The region's governor has proven adept at attracting European business investment and Belgorod's agri-business is booming. The city's university is awash with recent new construction and investment, including a state of the art Internet and communications center. Even the city's volleyball team was national champions of Russia in 2004 and went all the way to the finals this year too.
Behind it all, however, tower the ghostly images of St. George and the Virgin, tenaciously hovering over the battlefield of sacrifice from the war whose experience 60 years ago still does so much to shape the Russian people today. Those images cast their glow over Russia's past and, perhaps, its future.
I assume you are in Russia Sergiejov, on behalf of my wife
Anonymoussierra Sara Thank you
Battle of Kursk is not well represented in western world, nonetheless, we need to look at something bigger then this. Hitler thought he can command OKW and thus sealed his faith, Stalin let his generals do their job. He learned from Finland War his mistakes; however he did it only for his selfish purpose. At the end after all Stalin had blood on his hands and I hope he rots in deepest part in hell with Hitler.
For history savage people
http://www.onwar.com/articles/f0002.htm
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/avenue/vy75
http://zhukov.mitsi.com/Kursk.htm
http://www.euronet.nl/users/wilfried/ww2/ww2.htm
I am so thankful for the sacrifices of those Russian soldiers.
I am also glad that the memorial to them has a religious theme. I pray that ALL Russians have a chance to know the FAITH of their ancestors.... CHRISTIANITY.
On behalf of my wife and me to all people from Eastern Church Happy Easter Aleluja to you all Thankx-Thank you
I remember my first visit to Moscow. Went to Victory Park. Now most of the decorations/monuments there are Stalinistic. Still, the main spire is now decorated with angels and crosses and there is a new glass domed Orthodox Church commemorating the sacrifice of the soldiers.
That is truly wonderful. After all those years of ruthless persecution by the atheist commies, the ROC is able to build a Church in tribute to those wo died in a war against that monster hitler
stalin did NOT win in the final analyst, did he? He helped beat hitler..... BUT he COULD NOT DEFEAT THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH!!
WONDERFUL, just wonderful. : ^ )
Thanks for the info. I did not know that.
Course, there are dolts on FR who think if you are interested in ANYTHING positive or about ANY Russian Victories in WWII, you must be, as a matter of course, "a commie/stalinist lover".
Even though I fought and killed commies in Korea and my son did the same in NAM with my FULL support, these same dolts, still try to stick the dubious title of "commie lover" on me.
Geewhizzzzzzzz, what a bunch of goof-balls!!
Thank you and your son for your service. Those of us who do serve never forget the men and women who paved the way for us. Thanks again.
PS - if anyone is planning to go to Russia in the future ensure you schedule a visit to Volgograd (Stalingrad/Tsartsino) to see Mamaev Kurgan - it's worth the trip (If I could figure out how to post pics on here, I'd post some of the memorial.
Now, some nice freeper did in fact post a link and a picture of that monument last week. IMPRESSIVE INDEED!!
I wish I could get to see Russia. We were cold war ( and in my experience, NOT only a cold war) with the USSR for so long, that I always dreamed they would someday be a free country. I would just like to get to the country one time... I mean, it would be fantastic. I would love to see folks going to the Churches in freedom and see the monuments to WWII. Oh yeah, and to see that re-built Cathedral in Moscow. The pics are wonderful that I saw online.
Well I can help you give me the links I would do it for you if you want to
On behalf of my wife- Thank you
You are writing of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It had been destroyed and a swimming pool had been put in its place (a pool that would not hold water by the way! The water would just leak out and it would not stay full! A friend of our family who traveled there from Belgrade in his youth with his dancing troupe told us this. They had gone to the pool and were told by locals about the water-holding problems). I was there in November 2001 along with my brother. It is absolutely magnificent! From every point in the city of Moscow yu can see the domes of the Cathedral. It is enormous! Walking up to it is quite breathtaking. Inside it is just beautiful. We attended Vespers there on one of the evenings of our visit to Moscow.
I have to say though that my favorite place was Donskoi Monastery. It was literally around the corner from the apartment we stayed at (off the Schabolovskaya station).
It is very beautiful, but they really slapped it together quickly (wanted it done by the 850th Anniv. of Moscow). I hope it holds together. The Bolsheviks blew up the original church and planned to build a HUGE skyscraper with Lenin (Tsar-Ubitsa) standing atop it. It didn't pan out and a swimming pool was put in its place. Local lore has it that the pool was the site of some strange drownings - but I have no idea how true that is.
Another local legend (and the guy who told me this story is not one to tell tall tales...) - Donskoj monastyr was allegedly used by the NKVD during the purges to execute people (as a prison so to speak). People who lived in the area described seeing stray dogs trotting out of the complex with human body parts in the mouths.
I know this is where Patriarch Tikon was held when he was arrested.
His relics are there now. I was able to venerate them during my visit. (he was very small!)
It wouldn't surprise me that the NKVD would use a beautiful and peaceful place like Donskoi for such horrors.
I remember telling my brother during one of our walks through Moscow that I could feel the presence of all of the martyrs around every corner.
You definitely feel their presence. I've lived in some apartment buildings that lost quite a few tenants during the purges - the corridors can be a bit spooky at night (I'm sure it's just my imagination....)
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